Prince Harry returns to Afghanistan

The 27-year-old army captain spends his first morning at Camp Bastion checking
over the state-of-the-art Army aircraft.

11:00AM BST 07 Sep 2012

Having arrived in the war-torn country in the early hours today under the cover of darkness, looked relaxed, if slightly tired, and gave a thumbs-up after a long journey on a standard troop flight from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.

The royal climbed up to peer into the cockpit of one of the helicopters he will fly and crouched down to inspect its weapons.

He wore his combat uniform and was joined on the Apache flight line by another unnamed member of the 100-strong unit he is posted to, 662 Squadron, 3 Regiment Army Air Corps.

After about 10 days of acclimatisation and training to hone his skills, Captain Harry Wales – as he is known in the Army – will be set to go out on operations in his role as co-pilot gunner.

The Queen and Prince of Wales were both fully briefed about his return to operations and Charles is "immensely proud of his son", St James's Palace said.

Harry has made no secret of his desire to return to active service, and has spent the past three years changing the direction of his military career from an armoured reconnaissance troop leader to an Army helicopter pilot in order to be posted back to Afghanistan.

A St James's Palace spokesman said: "He's approached the deployment with a range of emotions like any other soldier and feels both pride and anticipation as he deploys for a job he's trained for, for so long.

"Prince Harry, like any soldier, considers it a great honour to represent his country in Her Majesty's armed forces wherever it chooses to deploy him."

The Prince can now put his naked Las Vegas romp behind him, and his antics can be seen as letting off steam ahead of a taxing deployment.

The third in line to the throne will now be knuckling down to the serious business of fighting the Taliban after reportedly getting a dressing-down by a senior officer for his well-publicised nude frolic.

Prince Harry was a second lieutenant with his regiment, the Household Cavalry, for his first deployment to Afghanistan and worked as a forward air controller coordinating air strikes on Taliban positions.

During his current posting he could carry out similar tasks to those he coordinated in 2007/08.

That tour of duty was abruptly ended when foreign media broke a news blackout on reporting details of his service.

This time the Ministry of Defence has chosen to confirm this deployment after a threat assessment concluded that acknowledging his presence in Afghanistan would not put the royal or his colleagues at further risk.

His return to front line duty comes after 18 months of rigorous training, both in the UK and the US, after which he won a prize as the best Apache co-pilot gunner when he qualified in February.

He will fly various types of mission while stationed in Afghanistan, from escorting RAF Chinook helicopters carrying troops or equipment to targeting Taliban fighters who have attacked ground troops.

The Apache attack helicopter was designed to hunt and destroy tanks, but as the Taliban do not use armoured vehicles, it has a different role in Afghanistan.

As the aircraft's gunner, he will operate its armoury of wing-mounted aerial rockets, Hellfire laser-guided missiles and a 30mm chain gun positioned directly under his seat.

Harry's four-month tour coincides with Operation Herrick 17, which is the British military code name for current operations in Helmand Province.

He will be based in Camp Bastion, a huge base in the middle of the desert shared with US, Estonian, Danish and Afghan troops in the south west of the country.

Last year, Prince Harry suggested it would be pointless to undertake costly helicopter training if he never went into combat.

"You become a very expensive asset, the training's very expensive and they wouldn't have me doing what I'm doing.

"I count myself very, very lucky to have the chance to fly helicopters, and even luckier to have the chance to fly the Apache.

"It's a fantastic piece of kit, it's like flying a robot."

Before deploying, Harry said his goodbyes to his immediate family, staying with his father at his Scottish retreat Birkhall on the Queen's private Balmoral estate during the Bank Holiday weekend at the end of August.

His brother the Duke of Cambridge wished him well when they met at William's home at Kensington Palace earlier this week.

The Prince was greeted at Bastion by the commander of the Joint Aviation Group, Captain Jock Gordon (Royal Navy).

He said: "I extend an extremely warm welcome to 662 Squadron, including Captain Wales, who with his previous experience as a forward air controller on operations will be a useful asset to the Joint Aviation Group.

"And working together with his colleagues in the squadron, he will be in a difficult and demanding job, and I ask that he be left to get on with his duties and allowed to focus on delivering support to the coalition troops on the ground."